Thermal annealing of fission tracks in synthetic apatites

Joëlle Carpena (1) , Jean-Louis Lacout (2)

1 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux

Synthetic analogues of poor-silicated natural apatites have been doped with uranium. These minerals have been irradiated with a thermal neutron dose in the aim to induce the 235U fission and to obtain a fission track population. Thermal annealing experiments have been performed on the fission track population and allow us to compare the ability of the synthetic minerals to anneal such nuclear damages with their natural analogues. The thermal of the fission tracks in the synthetic minerals need more time and/or higher temperature to reach the same annealing rate as in the natural analogues. The alpha damage present in the natural analogues seems to enhance the thermal annealing of fission tracks.

Mots clés: Apatite; Fission tracks; Thermal annealing; Alpha damage

Domaines: Matériaux; Matériaux

Joëlle Carpena, Jean-Louis Lacout. Thermal annealing of fission tracks in synthetic apatites. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2010, 228 (19), pp.3191-3194. ⟨10.1016/j.nimb.2010.05.085⟩. ⟨hal-03551223⟩